Book review

What do you get when an economist digs into America's food culture? If the economist is Tyler Cowan, you get "An Economist Gets Lunch," in which he offers some surprising culprits for our eating woes, and some clever ways to get the best meals for less.

When Erin Duffy got her pink slip from Merrill Lynch back in August 2008, there was one silver lining. Unemployment gave her time to write a novel. The result was Bond Girl, a fun and highly autobiographical recounting of one young woman's adventures in love and bond sales on Wall Street.

Howard Schultz, the impulsive and mercurial founder of Starbucks, had already told his story once, in "Pour Your Heart Into It." His new autobiographic tome, "Onward," reveals how he retook control of his company -- and despite his best efforts to paint himself as a benevolent visionary, his many, many flaws shine through.

She lost her fortune, her marriage, and her home -- and now Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of the 1995 self-help top seller 'Simple Abundance,' may have written one of the best personal finance books ever.

This week marks the second anniversary of an event that shook the financial industry to its core. In her newly released book, 'The Weekend that Changed Wall Street,' CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo gives an insider's look at the fateful days surrounding the fall of Lehman Brothers.

Stanford B-school professor Bob Sutton's The No Asshole Rule jolted readers with its descriptions of office bullies. His follow-up, Good Boss, Bad Boss, gives sharp advice on how to avoid being "bossholes".

The unauthorized biography of billionaire Lily Safra is a tale of one of the world's richest and most elegant women -- a jet-setter who socializes in the same elite circles as Prince Charles and Elton John. What is so fascinating, however, is exactly how Safra was able to climb her way to the top.

Throughout the pages of Walter Kiechel III's The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World, the author tells how one management fad succeeded since the mid-1960s. In doing so, Kiechel paints a picture of a culture where ideas, more than deeds, are the central product.

Each year, Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting is heralded by a new crop of Warren Buffett books. Among this year's newcomers are Buffett: Beyond Value and Buffett's Bites: The Essential Investor's Guide to Warren Buffett's Shareholder Letters. Both draw heavily on the words of the Oracle of Omaha, but they aren't saying much of anything new.

Question: What do undergraduates who virtuously hold back from eating a pile of cookies and comptrollers who can't get employees to meet expense-report deadlines have in common? Answer: They're tired. Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath explain in Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard